by
DevilChild
Fandom: The Fast and The Furious
Rating: For Mature Readers
Pairing: Dom/Bri; Bri/Mia
Author's Note: A TF&TF High School AU inspired by an onlist challange. Thanks to Dawn and Bone for the beta. Thanks to Khal for additional helpful commentary.
Copyright and Disclaimer: The Fast and The Furious and the characters from it are creations of Gary Scott Thompson, Eric Bergquist, and David Ayer. I make no claims their ownership or creation. This bit of not for profit modern folklore (thank you Prof. Jenkins) is mine.
Unfortunately Brian did not beat his mother home. She got all set to go vesuvial on him, but Brian saved himself by happily blurting out, "But Mom, I got her number!"
"Who -- her?"
"That fight I got in? The girl, Mia, works in a store a few blocks over, not far from the park. I biked over to get some Twinkies and ... I got her number." Brian could tell he had a grin a mile wide on his face.
His mom's features softened a bit and after a minute she smiled. "That's good. What's she like? And maybe without Rome as your shadow, you'll get a chance to really know her."
Brian let the dig at Rome slide as he launched into a description of Mia. He only hoped he didn't sound like a huge dork. But, then again, if your mom couldn't cut you some slack for acting like a dork, who could?
~oo(0)oo~
Three weeks later as Brian sat with Mia and several of her friends celebrating the homecoming victory at PT's, a popular local hangout, he tried to ignore the feeling that something was missing.
Not surprisingly Vince and Leon had not joined them, and neither had Mia's brother, Dom.
Brian kissed a bit of pizza sauce off the edge of Mia's lip. She was the perfect girl. She was as beautiful as she was smart, and he felt as happy with her as he had felt with any other girl. He just thought that being in love was supposed to feel different ... more exciting somehow.
The house was dark when he pulled up. She hinted that it would be okay for him to come in, but Brian said that, nah, he'd just take it slow and avoid any ugliness. She nodded and kissed him. He put his arms around her and held her close for long moments, liking the feel of her body against his, and the way her mouth still tasted faintly of garlic and pizza sauce. It felt so good and so right.
(But not the same as it felt to have Rome sagging against him.)
~oo(0)oo~
The Saturday morning pickup game in the park had been great, as usual, Brian thought as he pedaled away, cleats slung around his neck.
That first game, however, had been the most memorable. Hector took great pride in introducing him to anybody who didn't know him from school as "the snowman who almost took Mondo's record." Which meant that Brian got his fair share of hazing from everybody else -- mostly members of Hector's very extended family. But Brian didn't mind much because it was good natured, and as soon as he had shown what he could do, the respect followed.
Brian thought about stopping by Toretto's to see if Mia was working today, but then he figured that it was a little -- okay a lot -- on the gross side to show up all drenched in sweat, even if he could use something ice cold to drink.
About a block from where the way home diverged from the road to Toretto's, he saw a black Honda convertible swerve in front of a kid on a skateboard, causing the rider to crash.
What a shithead, Brian thought, and probably would have kept on going, except the driver of the Honda, a large twenty something Asian guy, got out in such a way which made it crystal clear that he had no intent of helping the skateboarder.
Brian coasted on over. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked. "I saw everything." He held out a hand to help the kid up.
"Yeah, I'm fine," the kid squeaked. He had a large scrape on his cheek, which he swiped at with equally skinned hands. The kid wasn't crying per-se, but his grey eyes swam with unshed tears of pain.
"Junior's fine. Now leave."
The venom in the voice shocked Brian as he pulled the kid up to stand behind him. Looking the driver in the eye -- they were easily the same height -- Brian said , "Look, man, I don't want any problems. Get in the car now and we'll pretend this never happened."
The guy scowled as he thought about it, then, with a black look at the two of them, climbed back in his car. "This isn't over yet, Jesse," he snarled, "you just got lucky today is all." He gunned the engine and roared off.
"Yeah, well, fuck you, Johnny!" the kid shouted. Despite his furious blinking, some tears had escaped -- two trails of clean wetness ran through the dirt on his face.
"Uh. I'm Brian."
"Jesse." His voice cracked.
"Where you headed?"
"Home."
"Call me a boy scout, but I'm going to walk with you and make sure that asshole doesn't finish what he started."
Jesse nodded in agreement, his eyes full of fear and anger underneath his stalwart show of bravado.
After a block or so, Brian said casually, "So, can you tell me what that's about?"
In a tight, angry voice, Jesse replied, "He had a fight with my dad."
Brian nodded, digesting that tidbit and then said, "Well, I can't wait to tell your dad what that ass did just now."
"You can't," Jesse snapped. "He's in jail."
Ouch. Sore subject.
"I know how you feel. My best friend just got sent to juvie out in Chino . I miss him a lot."
Jesse nodded. "And you can't tell my mom, neither. Dad and I haven't seen her in years." Cutting Brian's next question off, he said, "I'm staying with friends."
Two more blocks and then they turned. Brian recognized the street that Mia lived on. He wrestled with the idea of going to see if she was home (and getting a drink of water). Perhaps he could get one with Jesse's guardians. "Hey, Jesse, just curious. How old are you?"
"I'm 14 in two weeks."
Brian's opinion of Johnny, low to begin with, hit rock bottom and started digging. A 13 year old kid, for crying out loud. And it wasn't like Jesse was big for his age.
"School sucks," said Jesse out of nowhere, "except for math."
Brian had to laugh. "See, I'm of the exact opposite opinion. I think Algebra is the first form of Mid-East terrorism."
Jesse snorted and rolled his eyes. "You're weird. Algebra is fun. Next year I'll have Geometry, and I think it looks really neat already."
They were two houses down and across the street from Mia's when Leon 's Mustang screeched to a halt.
Crap.
Well, at least it wasn't Vince.
Leon leapt out of the car and ran over. "Jesse, what happened to you?"
"Johnny Tran," Jesse spat. "Brian chased him away."
Leon nodded. "Hey, let me get parked better, and then we'll get you inside and cleaned up, and I think you and Brian need to tell Dom just what the hell happened."
Brian trailed the two of them into the house. Dom was sitting on the couch playing GTA with a pretty Latina .
Glancing up from the TV, Dom said, "Damn, Jesse, you look like 40 miles of bad road."
"It was Johnny Tran," Leon said.
Dom leapt to his feet, game forgotten.
"Brian made Tran back off."
Dominic dragged a hand over his scalp and said, "Letty, make sure the mad scientist gets cleaned up okay. He nodded at Brian and pointed towards the kitchen. "We gotta talk."
~oo(0)oo~
By the time he climbed on his bike that afternoon, Brian really, really liked Dominic Toretto. He couldn't wait to meet Dom's father, Nick, who was out of town filling in as a mechanic on the NHRA circuit.
It turned out both Leon and Jesse lived there. Both had nowhere else to go, so Nick Toretto had taken them in.
And then there was Dom himself. Mia had said a few times that there was just something about her brother, something like gravity, and Brian finally saw full on what she meant. How many 18 year old guys could be trusted to keep the family store running, go to school, and be trusted not to party like madmen the minute their parents vanished? And, get this, nobody in the house seemed to think it strange that Dom just did it.
As Brian and Dom and Leon sat at the kitchen table drinking ice cold Gatorade, they just talked. After Brian had explained about Johnny Tran, the topics of conversation turned to school, sports (both Dom and Leon wrestled), and cars (Dom seemed to find the MR2 was worthy). And while Brian found out about Leon and got on with him, things between Brian and Dom just … clicked.
Like the way it did with Rome , except that Brian doubted he would have to follow Dom around, bailing his ass out of trouble, the way he had with Rome , or the way that Dom did with Vince. Vince, by the way, was Dom's best friend, even though Dom admitted, "I end up wanting to strangle him at least once a week." Brian laughed at that and talked a bit about Rome and some of the crazy shit they had done.
After rolling his bike into the living room, Brian walked into the kitchen room. "Hey Mom," he called out.
She stepped into the doorway, putting her hand over the receiver, and chirped out a cheery, "Hey, kiddo!" before diving back into her conversation about the problems the Log-Cabin so-called Republicans caused for the rest of the party. Brian rolled his eyes and took the stairs two at a time to his room. His mom got so wound up over politics and kept telling him to take the liberal wool off from over his eyes whenever he said something she didn't agree with.
Whatever.
He just made it a point not to talk politics with his mom.
Besides, it wasn't like he could do anything to change the lay of the land. Hell, he couldn't even vote. He opened his desk drawer, pulled out the notebook, and began writing about what had happened, and about how cool Dominic Toretto really was.
~~(Interlude == Midterms)~~
Hands pillowed behind his head, Dom stared up at the ceiling.
Life really, really sucked sometimes.
Like right now, for instance.
Normally Vince just had to look at a guy making overtures to Mia and they put their tails between their legs and ran off. Nobody had ever had the stones to stand up to Vince before, and without thinking about what the fallout could be, Dom stood up and did the right thing, let Brian have a shot at Mia, and Leon, as Leon always did once Dom had made up his mind, backed him. Besides, if the guy was a jerk, Dom would just pound the snot out of him.
And then it turned out that this new guy, Brian, was actually the kind of guy who deserved to have a girl like Mia.
The kind of guy a guy like Dom could fall for if he wasn't careful.
Torching for guys caused Dom enough problems already, like being in the locker room, or getting distracted when he was wrestling a guy, or just dealing with Letty.
Sigh.
Letty. If only Letty were a guy.
She loved cars as much as he did, so they had that in common. And Dom loved the fact that she was such a firecracker -- God, she'd even tell Vince off. He had known her since the day she had started kindergarten with Mia.
When it became pretty damn clear that Letty had set her sights for him, and wouldn't take no for an answer, she ground him down. Besides, she was perfect cover. Sorry girls, he could say, I have a girlfriend. She goes to St. Marks. It's just that Dom felt bad about using Letty . She deserved a real boyfriend, not someone going through the motions.
Years ago, when Dom began to realize that he was not like the other guys, he figured he could just wait it out. When he turned 18, he would graduate, move across the country, and just do what he wanted and nobody would ever know.
Yeah, right, because "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." After cancer took his mom, too many people ended up depending on him. Dad, Mia , Leon , Jesse, Vince ... and he just couldn't handle the thought of having them turn their backs on him and hate him.
Besides, secretly, super careful like, he looked at gay websites down at cybercafés, or snuck a quick glance at The Advocate and Out, and even brushed by the edges of a gay pride parade once.
He didn't find anybody like himself. Blue collar, into the right kind of cars, or even anybody who had to deal with the kind of responsibilities he had.
Sometimes, on nights like this, it seemed like everybody was going to find somebody. Like everybody was allowed to have somebody, except him.
Dom couldn't wait for wrestling season to begin. In between practice, school, working at the store, and fixing up Leon 's car, he would be so fucking busy he wouldn't have time to think about anything else.
Sigh. If only Letty were a guy. He could have somebody.
Except she'd probably be the first to kick his faggot ass.
With a groan, Dom rolled onto his side. If he had to spend time staring sleeplessly at something, better his poster of an Acura NSX than the off-white nothing of the ceiling.
~oo(0)oo~
With the start of regular soccer practice, pick up games in the park dried up. Fine by Brian because that just meant more time to spend hanging out with Mia and the rest of "Team Toretto".
Mia. Coolest girlfriend ever. Gave him plenty of space, unlike a lot of girls Brian had known or seen, who wanted their boyfriends around 24-7. Mia had no problem "sharing" him with Dom and the rest of the team. She also understood that grades were important and that Brian had obligations to the soccer team.
It worked both ways, too. Like Dom, Mia could be incredibly focused. Dom kept saying that she was going to do them all proud and become a doctor. She would just snort and roll her eyes at that. As she and Brian sat down and crammed for a Bio test one Thursday night, he wondered how she managed to find time to cram in cheerleading, working at the store (although Nick Toretto had finally come back, which took a considerable load off of her and Dom), holding down a 3.8 GPA, and still find time to spend with him. Not a lot of time, but still some. Brian was totally cool with giving her all the space she needed, because he had no delusions about her being "his woman" -- like he owned her or something.
They may not have seen a whole lot of each other, but time spent with her was almost invariably time spent with Dom and the crew, and vice versa.
Oh, and God, the Toretto house. Talk about the complete opposite of life with his mom, where things were quiet and orderly. Things never got really quiet at the Toretto house. Somebody was always doing something or saying something. In fact, Brian's house began to seem almost creepily quiet in comparison.
His mom complained a bit about how she "never saw him anymore", and about how she wanted to meet his friends, but after one Saturday afternoon when Dom and Leon came over and the three of them combined managed to wipe out the cold cuts, the peanut butter, all the OJ, and an entire loaf of bread, she stopped complaining.
The fact that Brian's mom also liked Mia helped. It was mostly because Mia "was on the college track" as opposed to Dom who was doomed "to wear a name tag and have grease on his hands." His mom only softened a little towards Dom when he diagnosed and replaced the faulty thermostat on her overheating Acura in about an hour, refusing payment, asking only the cost of parts. Brian found himself ranting in his journal for three pages over that incident. In the end, to keep things as peaceful as possible between his mom and his friends, Brian brought them over as little as possible.
As he jogged up the driveway to Dom and Mia's house, Brian noticed that Nick Toretto's truck was gone, but that Vince's Camaro was parked out front. He rapped on the back door and was a little surprised when Nick let him in. "Dom and Leon should be back pretty soon with the engine hoist," Nick explained. "Coffee? OJ?"
Brian poured himself a glass of juice and sat at the table with Nick. Through the doorway he could see Vince sacked out on the couch.
Nick saw him notice, sighed heavily and said, "Toretto's House of Strays. If you turn up on our doorstep, we'll take you in." He finished his coffee. "Well, the market's not going to open itself," he sighed. "I'll be back around five to see how it's going."
"Do you need a ride, Nick?" Brian noticed that the keys to the Honda were not hanging by the door.
"Nah. I'll just take The Beast. She needs to be driven at least once a month anyways, keeps her juices flowing."
"The Beast?"
"What? You mean you don't know? Come with me, kid."
They stepped outside and Nick unlocked the padlock to the garage. "Dom may have his little rice rocket," Nick said, "but I'm all about good old-fashioned Detroit metal."
Brian had assumed that the garage was just filled with stuff in storage. He had never gone in there or had a reason to peek in the windows. His first impression was that of a sleeping dragon, coiled in its lair, waiting for the unwary or foolish to enter. "Wow!" he gasped, "What kind of car is that?"
Nick tisked. "What kind of car? You youngsters don't learn nothin' these days. This, m'boy, is a 1969 Dodge Charger."
Brian simply gaped at the mysterious black and silver behemoth of a car. "I've never seen one before," he said. "Um. How many gallons to the mile?"
Nick's laughter, so like Dom's, rumbled from deep in his chest, "About seven to nine city, 12 to 15 highway, depending on how you drive it. Not that we do a lot of driving. Nah. I mostly drag her. Dom and I just finished fixing her again last year."
"What happened?"
"Oh, she had so much torque off the line that she bent her chassis. Getting that trued again and properly reinforced was a bitch, let me tell you."
Brian knew that Dom liked to drag race his Civic down by the railroad tracks. Thinking of what The Beast could do versus Dom's Civic, he said, "Boy, I'll bet he likes to drive her."
"Strangely enough, he never has. Never even asked," Nick replied. "Maybe it's something to do with the fact that I bought it about six months after his mother died as something for us to do together to keep us from going crazy with misery from missing her," Nick's voice trailed off. "We didn't start work on it until a few years later, though." Visibly collecting himself, he continued, "Well, I'd better fire her up and get to work."
A few seconds later the Beast rumbled to life, slithered down the drive into the street, and roared away in a cloud of burning rubber.
Yeah, shit. Brian completely understood how somebody could have the heebie jeebies about driving a car like that. He walked back into the kitchen to discover that the noise must have woken Vince up. He stumbled into the kitchen, bleary eyed, clad only in his jockeys. Since Vince had heard of how Brian had stood up for Jesse, an uneasy truce existed between them. Vince would never like Brian, but at least he wasn't actively hostile any more.
"Where's Nick?" Vince asked, yawning.
"At the store."
"Mmmm." Vince opened the refrigerator door and stuck his head in. Given the angle, the closeness, and Vince's near nakedness, Brian couldn't help but see the bruises on Vince's body. Bruises like that didn't just come from football, and a knot the size of a baseball on your lower back, just above your hip, couldn't be good.
Vince's eyes locked with his. "The fuck you staring at, faggot?!"
Brian ignored the dig. "What the hell happened to you?" Without thinking, his hand tentatively reached out in the direction of the bruise on Vince's hip.
Vince shied away, wincing in pain. "None of your damn business," he snarled.
Okay. Brian let it be.
Vince poured himself a bowl of Captain Crunch and began chewing noisily through it, pausing only long enough to ask, "Why are you over here so damn early?"
" Leon's engine started making a weird noise on the way home from the game last night. Dom says it's the connecting rod bearing, and I guess the only way to fix it is to take the engine out of the car. So I'm waiting for Dom and Leon to get here with the hoist."
"I guess it's a good thing I ended up here after all. Somebody has to keep the mad scientist out of your hair," Vince said.
Brian shrugged. "Jesse's a good kid. I like him."
Vince slammed his spoon back into the bowl, splashing milk on to the table. "I ain't saying he's a bad kid. He's just a hyperactive motor mouth is all. You guys will get more done if he isn't there asking a million billion questions, or playing with the tools and getting them all out of order. I like Jesse fine. Doesn't change the fact that he's a scatterbrain."
"Oh. I thought you were going to help with Dom and Leon."
"Nah." Vince poured himself another bowl of cereal. "I've never been much for engines. I don't care anything about cars except how fast they go."
Silence fell. They were saved from having to find something to say by the near simultaneous arrivals of Mia -- somehow looking as beautiful as ever in a pair of old sweats -- and Dom and Leon in the truck.
Everybody's eyes widened a bit upon seeing the bruises Vince had, but none of them said anything about it. The atmosphere was ... edgy ... and Brian was really glad to get out of the kitchen.
Because he had not done much work on cars before, Brian thought he would be relegated to reading the Chilton's manual. Nothing doing. When Brian had mentioned last night that he wanted to learn more about cars, Dom had apparently been very serious in his offer to teach Brian, and Dom believed in hands on learning.
Which is how Brian found himself, wrench in hand, Dom right behind him, giving instructions. The nearness, the proximity of Dom's body had a strange effect on Brian. He felt weird, and his stomach got fluttery.
Brian had always noticed guy's bodies. In fact, he had no problem admitting to himself that a guy's body could be just as interesting, just as eye catching, as a girl's. Brian considered himself a connoisseur of the human body. Of course, trying to explain this to another classmate and not have them think you were a complete homo because you thought that guy's had neat bodies, too, was impossible.
(Just admired the human body. Riiiight.)
But there was just something about the proximity of Dom's powerful and beautiful body to his. Brian could feel the heat coming off of it through his T-shirt, and the hand laid on his back as Dom steadied himself as he leaned in to point out the next bolt that Brian needed to tackle felt like a firebrand, and that faint whisper of air along the back of his neck had Brian's stomach doing flip-flops. A part of Brian wanted more, and a part of him recoiled at the thought. After two hours, he felt like he would come apart at the seams. He almost sighed in relief when it came time to finally pull the engine and transmission out of the car.
Vince kept Jesse out of their hair until just after lunch, when he had to get ready to go to work at a local pawn shop. Brian actually goggled at the notion of somebody as techy and cranky as Vince behind a cash register, but Leon caught his eye and said, "Man, would you try to knock over a store with old coyote there behind the counter?"
Vince flipped Leon the bird as he roared off.
Leon smiled and said something about watching Vince sing a different tune the next time the cooling system on that damn Chevy went.
About 30 minutes after Vince left, Brian was almost ready to get down on his knees and pray he would return to deliver them from Jesse. The 8th grader buzzed around the garage like a roadrunner on speed.
After another hour, Brian could tell that even Dom and Leon, used to Jesse's endless motion and chatter, had reached the end of their tethers. Luckily by that time, they had reached a logical stopping point in the job, so Dom covered the exposed engine block with a sheet of plastic, and they pushed the Mustang out of the garage and back to the curb so that Nick could park The Beast there when he returned from work.
By that time Letty had swung by and Mia was back from a cheerleading fund raiser, so everybody ended up in the front room, watching Pimp My Ride on TV. Somehow Letty, Dom, Brian, and Mia squeezed onto the battered old couch. Well, actually they only fit because Mia sat in Brian's lap, which, oh God, was wonderful. Her body felt so soft and smooth as he put his arms around her, and he liked the faint citrus scent of her perfume. He just prayed his body didn't decide to do something stupid like pop a boner, because he would die of embarrassment.
(And he was not the tiniest bit aware of every place where Dom's body touched his. Nope. Not aware of that at all. Not liking it. Not thinking it felt so right. Nope, not at all.)
"Y'know," Jesse blurted when the episode finished, "we should nominate Leon 's car."
"Nah," Leon rumbled, "my 'Stang is nowhere near piece of shit level. Just needs new paint and some TLC."
Undaunted, Jesse pressed on. "Is too. You've got those ratty seat covers because the vinyl's all cracked, and your dash is cracked all over, too, and foam keeps leaking out of your seats, and the roof lining is all in tatters, and the windows don't roll up well."
"We'll fix it up right, just one thing at a time," Dom said.
"B-but --" Jesse sputtered, so wound up he couldn't get a coherent thought out.
"He's got an idea in there somewhere, I think," Brian began. When nobody else butted in, he continued, "We could get the engine tuned up to run like new, but shit, if we could get MTV to pay to have it repainted and upholstered .... I think it's worth a try."
"Can't hurt," Letty said, and Dom nodded in agreement.
Leon jumped to his feet and gestured emphatically. "Earth to Team Toretto. Did you even see that last episode? They put a goddamned fish tank in that dude's car. That Nile chick got a fucking river in her Cadillac. Does that crap look like me? Do I need a fucking LCD and DVD player in my car? Shit no. I need them upstairs in my bedroom."
"But Leon , it would be sooooo cool to watch Initial D or Lodoss in your car!" Jesse yelped.
"Nah, Jesse. You mean you think it would be cool for you to watch all that fucking anime in my car and run down the battery and get fucking Pringles bits everywhere and then spill your coke on the seats."
Jesse huffed, "Look, I didn't eat or drink in your bed again, okay? I'm not stupid. I wouldn't spill my coke in your car and it was Doritos, not Pringles."
"See the kind of crap I have to put up with sharing a room with him?" Leon said, looking pointedly at Dom.
Dom rolled his eyes. "I still ain't sharing my room with you, Leon. You snore."
"Do not."
"Do too!" Jesse interjected. "And you talk in your sleep all the time. 'Ohhhh Miiaaa. Ohhh -'" he moaned as he leapt to his feet and ran for dear life, Leon in hot pursuit as Dom, Mia, and Letty roared with laughter.
Brian had to admit it was pretty damn funny. This is what it must be like having brothers.
Leon came back about three minutes later with an armlock on a squealing, squirming Jesse. "Yo, Dom. What say we bust out the mat and wrestle a bit?"
"Yeah. Sounds good."
Brian and the girls moved the barbeque and the table aside as Leon and Dom lugged a large mat out of the garage and unfolded it to cover half the back yard. It was not regulation size, but it was certainly better and safer than going for it straight on the ground. That task done, Leon and Dom disappeared for a few minutes, Jesse tagging after.
Letty looked at them and said, "There are times I realize Leon 's a lot smarter than he looks."
Mia said to Brian, "Leon and Dom are teaching Jesse how to wrestle. They say its so that if somebody like Johnny Tran tries something, he'll know what to do to get away, but if all goes right --"
"Jesse will be too pooped to pop tonight," Letty finished and both she and Mia smiled at the prospect.
When Dom and Leon stepped into the back yard a few minutes later, dressed in their singlets and headgear, Brian had a hard time keeping his eyes from popping out of their sockets. He knew that Leon and Dom had good bodies, but knowing it and seeing it … two completely different things. Those singlets didn't cover much and what they did cover they fit like a glove.
(Hot Damn!)
Brian felt himself flushing a bit as he catalogued their bodies while the two of them started Jesse in a series of running and stretching drills. When Leon began a series of takedown and escape drills with Jesse, Dom turned to Brian and asked for his help in giving his shoulders an extra stretch.
(Ohgod ohgod ohgod, the thought of touching that body …)
Brian froze like a rabbit in the headlights for a split second, then moved to stand behind Dom and take his wrists.
"Thanks," Dom rumbled, "When wrestling a guy as greasy as Leon , it helps to have all the flexibility you can get."
"Hey, I resemble that remark," Leon laughed. "The nickname's Soap, not Crisco."
"Soap?" Brian asked.
"You'll see in about two minutes," Dom said.
Brian thought it would be no contest. Leon had a strong, well toned body, but he weighed 180, and Dom was at least 225, all of it muscle. But try as Dom might, he could never seem to get Leon in a position to execute a pin. Not only could Leon move with surprising swiftness, but his body twisted and flexed in ways that Brian almost didn't believe were humanly possible.
For instance, Brian noticed Dom get the kind of armlock on Leon that Leon had gotten on Vince that day at the store. But by instantly arching his body -- in a way that looked almost painful -- as Dom began his spin, Leon flexed out of the hold, and a second later turned the tables on Dom.
"Damn!" Brian murmured. "I had no idea Leon was so good."
"He made it to the Masters," Mia whispered, "but then he got appendicitis. It actually burst. He's lucky to be alive."
However, Leon couldn't pin Dom, either. Dom had sheer strength on his side and knew how to use it, plus leverage, to brute force himself out of several holds.
The sight of their bodies, sliding over and around each other in such a raw display of strength and skill was …
(incredibly arousing).
Brian found himself half-panting, eyes fixed on the pair as he wrapped his arms around Mia, hugging her from behind, savoring, needing, the feel of her skin against his. He kept sneaking little kisses on her ear -- which made her shiver against him in the most wonderful way -- whenever he could bear to tear his eyes away from the sight of Dom and Leon going at it.
Mia responded by running her hands along his forearms and hands, her fingers feather light, and, glancing over her shoulder with a saucy look in her eye, she subtly wiggled her rump against the hardness straining in Brian's jeans.
Ohgod.
If it weren't for the fact that it would be incredibly tacky, coupled with the fact that Dom would probably kill him, Brian wanted nothing more than to take Mia back inside to that battered old couch, or better yet, her bed, and touch her and kiss her, and just savor her sleek gazelle-like body until he knew it as well as his own.
Last Updated: 5/14/09